When you own a business, you do most if not all the work in the beginning. As your business grows, you realize that you need help. You hire new employees, tell them what to do, and move forward. You keep repeating this process as your business grows. As you move forward and grow your business, oftentimes you are just trying to keep up with the growing demands of the business. Your customers and employees all need your attention. It’s so easy to get caught up just trying to keep up, that many things go unnoticed.
As a business owner, one of the hardest tasks is to take a break from working in your business so you can work on your business.If you are going to take your business to the next level, you need to step back, remove yourself from the daily grind, and take some time to ask some important questions: an we be more productive? Am I working as efficiently as possible? What can we improve? The operations of your business are just as important as anything else, but are often overlooked.
Analyze how your business processes everything. What’s the process to take an order? What’s the process to communicate to my team? What’s the process to deliver my services? What’s the process to take inventory? What’s the process to collect accounts receivables? Break down every procedure needed to run your company. This is a great opportunity to invite your team to participate. They will be able to contribute valuable insight, and this allows your team to feel included and important. The analysis will take some time and may seem overwhelming at first but the results are well worth all the effort.
After you take the time to analyze how you do things, ask how each process can be improved to make it easier to do business. Since your team is actually doing the work, they’ll come up with great ideas for improvement. Get creative and start mapping out all the workflows. Take your time to determine what and how things will work. Be practical. Stay on budget. This exercise is designed to help your business work more efficiently, not to be impractical or wasteful.
Create a strategy to implement the new workflows. Delegate the workflows to your team and start using them. Communication, as always, is key. Encourage lots of feedback on what works and what doesn’t. Make adjustments and keep communicating until the workflow is efficient. Remember to be flexible. As your business grows, your workflows will change. Give your team incentives to come up with new and innovative ideas to keep your company running as efficiently as possible.
Once the workflows are established, you’ll have an efficient company that will produce results quickly with less stress and increased productivity. You’ll have built more unity with your team that will promote honesty, trust, and transparency. Your clients will recognize and appreciate the ease of doing business with you. It’s possible to be intentional about your business and create an environment that is a pleasure to work in and do business with. It’s your business. Have a vision and take action...today.
